Category Archives: Philosophy

Heidi Krieger: Blue pills and gold medals.

“I still say today that they killed Heidi”. Andreas Krieger, 2013.

Sport is disparaged by some people for its futility, the idea of adults playing children’s games, wasting their time in pursuit of achievements that make little or no difference to ordinary lives. As a friend of mine once said when asked to watch a soccer match: ‘Oh, I don’t think so. The thought of 22 millionaires chasing a pig’s bladder around a pitch is not really my idea of entertainment’. There is, no doubt, some very real justification for this view, with genuine amazement and anger at some of the wages that are paid to top sports stars – and the astronomical figures that are paid for their transfers between clubs. And when the hype starts over events such as the Olympics and the World Cup, it is natural that some people will really wonder what all the fuss is about. But as some other posts have suggest, some of us do believe that sport matters and is, at times, rather more than just a game. At its best, people love sport because it is unscripted drama and, without being too grand, it says something about societies and cultures as well as the human condition. The skills, fitness, training, conditioning and teamwork required do offer something to admire; the control of emotions and the handling of pressure can offer insights that are valued by many other professionals; and the intensity of competition, the passion, the spectacle and the final result can inspire individuals, give nations pride and create memories that last a lifetime. From Borg v McEnroe to Ali v Foreman, from the Gladiators to the modern Olympics, from WG Grace to Babe Ruth, from Sumo wrestling to cross country skiing, from Brazil in 1970 to England’s win in the Ashes in 2005, sport matters on so many levels.

But sometimes it’s not quite like that and here are two famous examples of why sport is sometimes less uplifting.

Italian marathon runner, Dorando Pietri, crosses the line at the end of the marathon in London in 1908.

The looks and the style seen in these two photos are quite different but they are rather similar as both lost their titles: Pietri was disqualified after being helped by judges when he fell a number of times in sight of the line while Armstrong lost all seven of his Tour titles, as well as many other awards, a lot of money and his reputation, after being found guilty of the use of banned drugs. One was an amateur, guilty of getting unexpected help as he pushed himself to the limit in pursuit of a medal; one was found guilty of the planned and systematic use of drugs so as to push his limits beyond any that were possible under his own ability. Something has changed in sport, and in society, in the century that separates Pietri from Armstrong – and that something is not good as it has left question marks over many achievements in many sports, not the least of them being cycling and athletics, which this post will look at a little more.

Once upon a time, in what might be seen as some naive and glorious days, athletics was all about individual people pushing themselves to the limit, developing their skills, working hard and having a good clean competition. They did this while holding down a full-time job and got little or no reward for their labours. But things slowly changed and events like the Olympics, which were re-established in 1896, took on huge overtones of national pride – or at least they did from the 1930s onwards. In the increasingly nationalistic years between the world wars, victory in sport came to signify something special not just for the athlete concerned but for the nation and the system that they represented. Fascist leaders, for example, came to see their top athletes as products of their system, glorifying their stars as symbolic heroes whose powerful bodies and keen minds somehow reflected the supremacy of their ideology. While the record breaking miner, Aleksei Stakhanov (1906-77), might be a hero for Stalin’s Soviet Union, it was the likes of the boxer Max Schmeling (1905-2004) who Hitler wanted to present as a symbol of Nazi supremacy after his defeat of Joe Louis in 1936. Athletes became representatives, role models and examples of the best that a country could offer, symbols of the ideology, the diet, the coaching, the lifestyle and so on. Sport was seen as a powerful tool for propaganda and a great turning point was reached with the Berlin Olympics of 1936 which Hitler believed had the potential to cast a revitalised Germany with the world experiencing a spectacular event with Aryan athletes to the fore. As is well known, one Jesse Owens from the USA, put a number of files into the ointment at Berlin but that did not change the idea that sport could be used to enhance political power by the shaping of opinions. Sport had truly taken on a nationalistic dimension and this was only to be increased after World War II.

In the years following 1945, the Cold war developed between the Western powers which favoured capitalism and democracy, under the leadership of the USA, and the Eastern forces which chose state control and Communism, under the guidance of the USSR. Under Joseph Stalin, there was little time for, or interest in, the power of sport but under his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, this was to change. A most significant year in this was 1956, the year of Khrushchev’s famous ‘Secret Speech’ (see the post on Khrushchev) which was part of a change of policy from the time of Stalin. The new idea of ‘Peaceful Coexistence’ meant that the USSR was going to compete with the west and defeat it by showing the supremacy of its system in terms of art, culture, industry and, of course, sport. The goal would be that these victories would show the workers of the West that they would be better off under Communism and so lead to a revolution – and the collapse of capitalist democracies. Obviously this did not happen but the rise of Communist countries as sporting powers (at least in simpler sports which did not require too much by way of complex skills or technological expertise, such as motor racing, golf, tennis or horse racing) is obvious from the medals table in the Olympic Games from 1956 onwards (see the post on the Olympic Games). The drive for supremacy started in the USSR but was very soon adopted by the satellite states of Eastern Europe with a special emphasis being placed on women’s sport where things were less developed than in man’s sport and where changes based on greater strength and technique could be quickly turned into progress.

Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), leader of the USSR whose commitment to ‘Peaceful Coexistence’ after 1956 changed the Cold war and was a major influence in the development of drug use in sport. (Author: Heinz Junge; Source: here)

As mentioned, Communist countries such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany soon developed major sporting programmes. High levels of participation were encouraged, elite athletes were identified, and special coaching facilities were established. The elite athletes became full-time in an age when few could do this in the West. Special diets were developed, new techniques explored and a propaganda system was built up to ensure high levels of support for the programmes. Leading athletes were ‘employed’ by the police or armed forces but then trained full-time at their respective sports. The benefits were clear as the USSR soon overtook the USA as the leading country at the Olympics. This was a huge shock to the USA and the West which had grown used to winning medals and dominating the Olympics, amongst other events. In an age in which television and media coverage of sport was developing rapidly, the sight of Communist athletes racing past the best the West could offer raised many questions – and doubts. These concerns in the West were matched by elation in the East but in the drive to maintain and strengthen the advantage, there was a move towards the first systematic use of drugs to enhance sporting performance, most notably in events which required strength and endurance. From the 1960s through into the 1980s, the use of drugs such as testosterone and anabolic steroids, was widespread, and it was all very easy as there was drugs testing at the time, which seems extraordinary to us but was a sign of the way the system tends to lag behind the cheats. One sign of the widespread power of drug use in these decades can be seen in the many records that were set then which marked extraordinary advances – and have not been matched since, especially in the women’s power events like the shot and discus.

But there was a price to be paid for this, and it fell on the athletes themselves. Young gymnasts, for example, were taken from their homes at an early age and forced to work incredibly long hours, often in great pain. For many of the girls chosen for the programmes, the plan was to keep them underweight so that puberty would be delayed which allowed greater flexibility to be maintained. Some went on to successful careers but many others ended up almost crippled through injuries and arthritis, the results of their work-load, training schedule and diet. However, drug use was most common in the endurance and power events, where anabolic steroids were seen to be hugely beneficial to performance. The discovery of the effects of, for example, testosterone on the female body were known and from the 1960s it was injected into many athletes in Communist countries, nowhere more so than in East Germany. Despite having a population of less than 20 million, only a third of the size of the more affluent West Germany, East Germany rose to be the third most powerful athletics nation in the world behind the USSR and the USA during the 1970s and 1980s. The claim made by the authorities was always that success was down to the power of the Communist system the quality of education, the superiority of coaching and the passion shown by the athletes but there was a simpler element to the reason. The use of drugs, of steroids and testosterone, was never mentioned but its effects were clear to all. The authorities were not keen to investigate because it would undermine the sport and run a risk of causing a massive political incident at a time when the Cold war was at its height but many people had serious questions about the progress made by so many people from a limited number of countries and in such specific events.

One particular story can sum up the experience of as many as ten thousand East German athletes, and the thousands of others from around the world, both under Communism and in the West, who ended up using drugs in sport. This is the story of Heidi Krieger, a shot putter born in East Berlin in 1966.

Oral-Turinabol tablets as on display at the DDR Museum in Berlin. (Author: User:FA2010; Source: here)

Heidi Krieger was one of those athletes chosen for an athletics programme in this period who, as part of her training, was required to take a small blue pill. It was an anabolic steroid called ‘Oral-Turinabol’, which contained testosterone. It boosted her muscle growth and endurance as well as helping her to recover from injury more quickly. The distances she could throw the shot went up dramatically – but it had side-effects: increased risk of infertility, increased hair growth like stubble and chest hair, increased risk of breast cancer, greater heart problems and the risk of cancer. Heidi Krieger was just one of nearly a thousand athletes who suffered serious consequences from taking ‘Oral-Turinabol’. She was a successful athlete, winning gold in the shot put with a distance of 21.10 metres at the 1986 European Championships at which East German women won four of the six field events. There were 18 medals available in all for these six events and competitors from Communist countries won 15 of them. And it’s interesting to note that the distances achieved in winning the gold medals in the shot, discus and javelin at the European Championships in 1986 were all greater than those that won gold in Beijing Olympics of 2008 or at London in 2012.

But Heidi Krieger was never comfortable in herself after she started being given the bright blue pills when she was 14 or so. She was given the drug regularly over many years, eventually suffering significant side-effects, growing stubble and other bodily hair associated with men and starting to develop male genitalia. She and her friends watched as their noses grew wider, their hands got larger, their muscles expanded and they became more aggressive. Other complications such as depression, severe acne, liver malfunctions, much deeper voices and reduced libidos were all consequences of the ‘bright blue pills’. She eventually reached the point where she saw that the only way out was to have a sex-change operation and so it was that in 1997 she became ‘Andreas Krieger’. As Andreas, he married Ute Krause, a former East German swimmer, who had herself been forced to take ‘Oral-Turinabol’ pills many years before and had been driven to attempt suicide by the effects. The ‘Heidi Krieger Medal’ is now awarded annually in Germany, honouring an athlete who has combated doping in sport; the gold medal from 1986 forms part of the trophy.

The simple facts of the story of Heidi/Andreas Krieger hide the battle for supremacy in the Cold War. Ideology and image was so important that the system was all and individuals ceased to count. Powerful people at the top of the system, especially in Communism, were willing to use and abuse their own citizens in pursuit of victory, seeing each medal and each record as a nail in the coffin of the other side. Sport was as much a part of the Cold War as were speeches, spies and missiles. People were dehumanised in the pursuit of power and many suffered great emotional and psychological pain as well as physical suffering. It is another reminder that sport is important as a reflection of what human beings are capable of doing – both for good and ill.

And what happened through the use of drugs in sport cannot have been what Karl Marx had in mind when he imagined ‘Communism’ as a system which would create a world of opportunity, equality and justice for all. But this is not only a problem of the Eastern Bloc countries in the Cold War for the abuse of drugs in sport was going on in the West before the Berlin wall came down – and it has continued since, and few major countries or sports have escaped their influence: Marco Pantani, Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong and dozens of others in cycling; Ben Johnson, Marion Jones and many others in athletics; Mark McGwire and so many others in baseball; the lists go on and on.

But for all that, sport still has the ability to inspire like few other things; maybe its just a tragic reality that drugs will now always be a part of the script and that they have done so much damage to people like Andreas Krieger.

One of the greatest, oddest monuments of all time: the young, handsome, dynamic Mao Zedong, wart and all, on top of a mountain at Juzizhou, China. The statue is 32 metres high, a suitably huge monument to the leader of the revolution. (Author: 刻意; Source: here)

Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward: Master or Monster?

‘A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.’ Mao Zedong

The 1960s are famous as a time of radical change. As the generation that had been during the Second World War came to adulthood, technology developed and tastes changed so as to mark a step-change in the attitudes, values and goals of many, although not the majority of people. The changes of that decade usually focus on things like The Beatles, hippies, protests and the moon landings but there were also fascinating developments to be found in the many bookshops on Britain’s high streets. One of the ‘new’ books which caused more than a little controversy was ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by DH Lawrence (1885-1930), Nottingham’s most famous literary son, which had originally been published in 1928 but only became available in the shops after the famous obscenity trial in 1961. It flew off the shelves after the trial which approved its publication. The trial itself attracted huge publicity and reflected a significant change in social values in Britain. One comment by the barrister who led the prosecution, Mervyn Griffith-Jones QC, showed how out of touch some members of the ‘establishment’ had become since the book had been written: ‘Is this the type of book that you would wish your wife or servants to read?’ However, while Lawrence’s work threatened and disturbed many people for its language (lots of swearing) and subject matter (lots of sex), it was not the most disturbing book of that decade for many people. For that ‘honour’, we have to delve into the murky world of ideology and politics, as it was ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’, better known as ‘The Little Red Book’, which really sent shock waves around Britain and the Western world.

As it suggests, ‘Quotations from Mao Tse-Tung’ contains the sayings of the famous leader of China, Chairman Mao’. ‘Mao Tse-Tung’ was the old way of spelling his name and today it is usually spelt ‘Mao Zedong’, rather like ‘Peking’ has become ‘Beijing’. This was the most printed book of the 20th century with over 5 billion copies made and was at the forefront of a massive propaganda campaign which aimed to explain Mao’s policies and the values of Communism to the people of China. It also became a huge propaganda tool in the West where many copies appeared in the hands of, mostly, young people. The book itself came to prominence during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China in the mid-sixties and became hugely popular around the world, being seen as a part of the Eastern wisdom which was so potent amongst many young, wealthy Westerners at the time. This was an age when increasing numbers of people, especially the young, were disillusioned with traditional Western politics, lifestyle and philosophy and started to look to the East for hope and ‘salvation’. This embracing of Eastern values was seen in numerous ways at the time: the opening prayer at Woodstock in 1969 was offered by Yogi Bhajan; The Beatles, Mike Love of ‘The Beach Boys’, Mia Farrow, Donovan and other stars travelled to India seeking enlightenment; and many hippies simply dropped out and smoked their way from Marrakesh to Vietnam. On the back of this love-affair with the East, Mao was presented as an almost mystical figure, a god-like character who could inspire a new way of living which was beyond the imagination of traditional leaders in the West. His ‘wisdom’ was available in the ‘The Little Red Book’, a radical expression of those traditional Eastern values for modern times. While this might have been the interpretation, though, the reality of life behind the book was a somewhat different tale. Most people knew little or nothing of life in China so that Mao’s words were devoid of context and not supported by any evidence. Whereas Mao’s words seemed to speak of a gentle wisdom, the sort of thing a spiritual master might share with his disciples, the truth was that his methods led to death and suffering on an unimaginable scale in China itself. Perception might have presented Mao as a ‘Master’ but reality offers us a ‘Monster’.

As we have said, for Mao’s supporters, the ‘Little Red Book’ was full of wisdom and guidance for anyone wanting to reach a Communist utopia. For his enemies, on the other hand, these were the aggressive, confused, dishonest ramblings of an extreme dictator in the tradition of Joseph Stalin. Here are three examples of his writings which can range from the rather aggressive to the reasonable and thoughtful, at least as words on paper:

“People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed.”

“Our comrades must understand that ideological remoulding involves long-term, patient and painstaking work, they must not attempt to change people’s ideology, which has been shaped over decades of life, by giving a few lectures or by holding a few meetings. Persuasion, not compulsion, is the only way to convince them. Compulsion will never result in convincing them. To try to convince them by force simply won’t work. This kind of method is permissible in dealing with the enemy, but absolutely impermissible in dealing with comrades or friends.”

“We should be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the Chinese people heart and soul. Our point of departure is to serve the people wholeheartedly and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses, to proceed in all cases from the interests of the people and not from one’s self-interest or from the interests of a small group, and to identify our responsibility to the people with our responsibility to the leading organs of the Party.”

To understand the ‘Little Red Book’, of course, it is necessary to know something about Mao himself, one of the most important figures of the Twentieth Century. Mao Zedong was born in Shaoshan, in the Hunan province of China in 1893, the son of a peasant farmer. At that time, China was still ruled by an Emperor, Guangxu (1871-1908), the penultimate Chinese Emperor of all time. This was a time of increasing unrest in the country, a time of trouble which would bring the end of the empire in 1911 and see the establishment of the Chinese Republic the following year. The story of that ‘Chinese Revolution’, in which Mao took part as a soldier, is, however, another story.

Shaoshan railway station makes a lot of the fact that the ‘great man’ was born there. You might also like to know that this was the original home of the ‘Mao Family Restaurant’, which is now a chain found in many cities across China; it’s a strange world at times. (Author: Troy Parfitt; Source: here)

Another topic that will have to wait for another post is the fuller story of Mao Zedong’s life before he came to be leader of China and, indeed, so much of the other interesting stuff that surrounds his time in power. As you’ll see if you do any research of your own, the books on Mao are almost always very long simply because there is so much to cover and so much opinion on what he did and why he did it. If you want to pick up on a few points from those first 56 years of his life, you could focus on a few dates: 1911 and his involvement in the revolution to end the Chinese Empire; 1925 and his role in Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party) alongside key figures such Zhou Enlai, Lin Biao and, his arch enemy of later years, Jiang Jieshi; 1935 and the extraordinary struggles of ‘The Long March’; 1937 and the Second World War with the struggle to overthrow the Japanese forces through carefully orchestrated guerilla warfare.

Mao became leader of China in 1949 when the Communist Revolution overthrew Jiang Jieshi (also known as ‘Chiang Kai-shek’, (1887-1975)) and his Nationalist forces, the Kuomintang. Victory had finally been won after Mao’s forces won the Chinese Civil War, a struggle which had raged on and off for more than a quarter of a century and where the Nationalists had been backed with aid from the West, especially the USA, which took a real interest in Chinese affairs. The China that Mao came to rule in the middle of the century had the largest population in the world, some 350 million people, but it was a poor, economically under-developed country in which most people worked as farmers and there was very little by way of a modern infrastructure or advanced technology. It faced similar challenges to those of the USSR in the 1920’s, so change in some form was needed if it were to survive in the increasingly competitive post-war world, a world dominated politically by the Cold War and economically by capitalism and the forces of globalisation.

Mao Zedong was a huge admirer of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the USSR from 1928 to 1953, and he was been horrified when Nikita Khrushchev attacked Stalin in his ‘Secret Speech’ at the XXth Party Congress in 1956. Mao had actually visited Moscow in 1950 to seek Stalin’s approval and guidance for the country, and was always willing to defer to the man he recognised as the leader of ‘world Communism’. Mao trusted Stalin, believing in his strong style of leadership which made him happy to play second-fiddle to the USSR, and giving the Kremlin leader precedence within Communism as the ‘older brother’. But when Stalin was attacked and his legacy threatened by Khrushchev, it was too much for Mao, who became increasingly wary of Moscow and started to offer an alternative model of leadership and support to other Communist states. For Mao, Khrushchev was effectively a traitor to the Communist cause and their relationship became increasingly tense and awkward. While the West, and especially Washington, saw Communism as one family controlled by Moscow, the reality was always different, something no US president fully understood until Richard Nixon came to power in 1968. The strength of Mao’s commitment to Stalin’s style and methods were seen in two major events: the extraordinary ‘Great Leap Forward’ of the late 1950s and the bizarre and tragic ‘Cultural Revolution’ which started in 1966.

Front cover of a school textbook in 1971 showing Chinese Red Guards fighting with a pen and announcing the message from ‘The Little Red Book’; a wonderful example of propaganda. (Author: Giulia Villa; Source: here)

Let’s start with a look at ‘The Great Leap Forward’. Karl Marx had believed that Communism would first be established in one of the advanced industrial economies of Europe, such as Germany, France or Britain. He would have been shocked to see it first appear in Russia and then imposed by force in Eastern Europe before taking control of China. Russia and China were predominantly agricultural economies which had little by way of a complex capitalist structure with the mass exploitation of workers, while the use of force to impose control on the population of eastern Europe went against any idea of the the uprising of the people to overthrow oppressive rulers. The lack of economic development was an essential problem in the USSR where Stalin recognised the country’s industrial fragility and so forced industrialisation on what was an agricultural society through the ‘Five Year Plans’ after 1928. The cost was huge in terms of human suffering but the progress achieved had effectively driven the Soviet Union to victory in the ‘Great Patriotic War’ of 1941-45 and established the country as a ‘Superpower’. In twenty years, the USSR went from being a peasant economy where many ploughs were pulled by people, to one which had produced its own Atom Bomb. Mao faced a similar situation in China, where the vast majority of the people lived in the countryside and worked as peasant farmers. In homage to Stalin and in direct opposition to advice from Khrushchev, Mao decided to impose his own version of the Five Year Plans on China. This was to be the ‘Great Leap Forward’, the massive and rapid industrialisation of the country.

The ‘Great Leap Forward’ began in 1958. It echoed not only Stalin’s goals from thirty years before but also his methods. The people and culture of the country had clearly not produced the ‘desired’ system so force had to be used. The majority of farms, which were small and independent, were to be taken over by the State and the land would become part of a huge industrial farming structure, under a system of ‘collectivisation’. This was a direct echo of what had happened in the USSR in the 1930s and played such a key role in the Ukrainian famine, an appalling tragedy which had killed some seven million people. New technology was to be used to replace the peasant farmers who would then be moved to urban areas, which would become the focus for huge industrial developments. Fertile rice paddies were ploughed up and replaced by factories in what turned into one of the greatest disasters of all time. However, the new farming methods did not work as people did not know how to use them, schedules were changed too dramatically and there was a huge loss of experience and skills. Everything happened too quickly and was chaotic; and no one was able to challenge it under fear of death.

The ‘Great Leap Forward’ was an almost total disaster, a situation which was epitomised by the thousands of small furnaces which were set up across the country. In backyards and on streets, the people made their own furnaces in an attempt to make steel, the goal being to overtake Britain for its level of steel production. The use of quotas and targets was another thing which echoed Stalin’s ‘plans’ and the people responded with a mix of fervour and fear. Pots and pans, door handles and old tools were amongst the things melted down in an attempt to increase production of steel for massive projects, such as factories, transport, mining and power. The energy and resources poured into the whole project of industrialisation was so wasteful that overall production of key resources failed to reach anything like the planned levels. And it was all a waste of time as the quality of the steel produced was so poor as to be useless; as Ian Dury and the Blockheads once sang: ‘What a waste’.

This propaganda poster calls on Chinese people to produce more steel: “Take steel as the key link, leap forward in all fields.” It’s hardly the snappiest slogan of all time but it’s a clear message and a classic image. (Author: Unknown; Source: here)

The problems caused in the towns were terrible but those in the countryside were even worse. Unrealistic targets, attacks on those who challenged the system and the loss of experienced workers combined to create harvest failures on a massive scale. One of the worst famines of modern times was the result and at least 20 million people died. Some estimates actually put the death toll at over 40 million, which would make it the worst recorded ‘natural’ disaster of all time. And the blame for what happened lies sully on the shoulders of Chairman Mao Zedong, making him a serious contender for the title of the ‘greatest killer of all time’. But the full details of the tragedy did not emerge for many years because Mao made sure that there was a total suppression of information. No one was allowed to mention the famine, deaths and problems associated with the failed experiment so that no resources were diverted to help those in need. The ‘Great Leap Forward’ came to an abrupt end in 1961 and was a disaster on an unprecedented scale.

One footnote to the tragedy of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ was the fate of Tree Sparrows in China, one of those sad, simple stories which show human beings at their worst. As part of the campaign for industrialisation, Mao launched an attack on what were known as the ‘Four Great Pests’, namely, rats, mosquitoes, flies and sparrows. Regarding the sparrows, Mao believed that they were eating grain and so disrupting agricultural production – and they had to go. No one knows quite how many birds died but it was in their many millions that these small birds fell to the ground. The usual plan was for people to make as much noise as possible so that the sparrows would not settle in the trees to rest and so fall to the ground exhausted. This was done by banging pots and pans, waving flags or simply shouting. Birds were shot, traps were set, nests were torn down, stones were thrown and eggs were broken in an attempt to wipe out the Tree Sparrows. The campaign was a part of the disaster, though, as too many sparrows died which allowed a plague of locusts and grasshoppers to attack the harvest. It was a tragic ecological footnote to an horrific human disaster.

Mao was less secure in his position as Chairman following the disaster of the ‘Great Leap Forward’. His behaviour became increasingly eccentric and he withdrew from public view more and more, adopting an approach similar to one of the old Emperors rather than that of the ‘Father of the Nation’. In an attempt to re-assert control over the Communist Party and the country, Mao launched the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in 1966. One feature of this plan to re-gain control of the state was the publication of the ‘Little Red Book’. Red Army soldiers, children at school, students at university and ordinary people in the street were expected to have their copy and to read it. It was seen at rally after rally and it was read out at meetings, on the street and over the radio. For a person to read the works of other authors or to question Mao’s ideas in any way was enough to unleash the most severe consequences. This period saw a ban on the publication of new books or the presentation of new ideas on just about any topic. Journals on the arts were banned and art schools were closed. Old monuments and temples were attacked and the works of Confucius were amongst those burnt; only the books of Lu Xun were allowed. Lu Xun (1881-1936) was the one author Mao admired and saw as completely acceptable with regard to Communism, although the author himself never joined the Chinese Communist Party.

The ‘Cultural Revolution’ was a drastic and devastating attempt to ‘purify’ Chinese society of all opposition, rather in the style of Stalin in the ‘Great Purges’ and the ‘Show Trials’ of the 1930s. It was a classic example of what extreme dictators do: they dictate in extreme ways. Mao aimed to re-establish his control over the Communist Party and thousands of people were removed as a part of this process, including former allies, leaders and critics. The most high profile casualty was the man who appeared to be Mao’s heir, Lin Biao, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 1969, shades of Stalin’s removal of Trotsky perhaps. The ‘Cultural Revolution’ had clear echoes of Stalinism, as it involved attacks on any form of opposition to Mao, especially focusing on landowners and ‘intellectuals’. In reality, this was all an attempt to expose and remove any officials who questioned Mao’s methods or showed any support for the Soviet model of Communism. It set back any hope of political and economic progress in China by a generation.

In echoes of Stalin’s use of propaganda, this most dark episode had to be ‘sold’ as a triumph and there was a widespread use of posters, songs and badges carrying Mao’s image. Here is a translation of one song from those days but you will have to work out any tune for yourselves:

Ten hundred million people unite in fighting; our red state power stands firm.

A new generation is growing to maturity,

Going against the wind and breaking the waves, they are the heroes.

The industries learn from Daqing,

And the agricultural sector learns from Dazhai.

News of victory is reported all around the country.

Seven hundred million people follow Chairman Mao,

To continue revolution and walk forward.

The Cultural Revolution is good!

The Cultural Revolution is good!

The Proletarian Cultural Revolution is indeed good,

Oh, indeed good, indeed good and indeed, indeed good!

There were so many horror stories from these days that they are impossible to list. Anyone who was wealthy could see their house taken from them and the whole family forced to live in one room. Red Guards could enter a house and simply destroy anything they chose to see as a sign of being one of the ‘bourgeoisie’, such as a painting, a chair or having meat in the house when others didn’t. Wearing western clothes or having a foreign book or music in your house could bring the most severe punishment. To forget a saying from the ‘Little Red Book’ could bring a beating or imprisonment, as well as the loss of a job. Certain foreign nationals faced particular dangers, such as the Tibetans, a situation which has echoes today in the plight of that nation. The children of the rich were sometimes simply murdered for their privileged background, the bodies being thrown onto rubbish tips. And while all this was happening, rather like in the French revolution, no one was able to question what was happening for fear of their own death.

The Cultural Revolution resulted in the deaths of an estimated 7 million people between 1966 and 1976. It’s the sort of number that doesn’t sound too bad if you say it quickly but that is pretty much the same as the deaths in the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 and the equivalent of, say, twice the population of modern Berlin, although all such comparisons are pretty meaningless in the end; it is a number beyond comprehension for most of us. At the forefront of the atrocities carried out were the ‘Red Guard’, usually young, zealous, fanatical members of the Party. The horrors of those tragic days also had echoes of the Holocaust as party officials competed with each other by identifying and removing more ‘enemies’, so showing their ‘greater’ loyalty to Mao. In the cities, party officials were forced into humiliating public admissions of guilt; in the countryside it was reported that wearing glasses was enough to mark someone as an intellectual. Everywhere, the bodies piled higher as a sign of the purification of the country. Despite these horrors, the ‘Cultural Revolution’ did not mark the darkest days of Mao’s regime, though, thanks to the earlier tragedy of the ‘Great Leap Forward’.

Mao Zedong died in 1976. He was 82 years old and had ruled China for 27 years. As he got older, he was increasingly paranoid so that he rarely washed and refused to clean his teeth for many years, fearing this would be a way in which he might be poisoned. His private life became increasingly secretive and, according to his personal doctor, morally corrupt. He used heavy barbiturates but generally enjoyed reasonable health until his death. Of the many words he said and wrote, his final ones were, apparently, ‘I feel ill; get the doctors’, something he denied to many millions.

On Mao’s death, there was an enormous outpouring of grief in a manner which was very similar to that for Joseph Stalin, as the photo shows. The people lined up in their thousands to pay their respects and his body is still preserved and honoured; his mausoleum stands at the east of Tienanmen Square and is a popular place for both tourists and local people to visit. (Author: Unknown; Source: here)

‘The Little Red Book’ might have claimed to offer wisdom and guidance for a new world and a ‘heaven on earth’, but one hell of a lot of it was written in blood. His final ‘death toll’ was put at more than 70 million, a number well in excess of either Hitler or Stalin, and he has to stand alongside them when it comes to any contest for the title of ‘Most Evil Man of the Twentieth Century’.

Find out more

Books: ‘Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book’ (www.bnpublishing.com); ‘Private Life of Chairman Mao’ by Zhisui Li (Arrow, 1996); ‘Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962’ by Frank Dikotter (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011); ‘The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1949-1957′ by Frank Dikotter (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013); ‘Tombstone: the Untold Story of Mao’s Great famine’ by Yang Jisheng (Allen lane, 2012); ‘The Cultural Revolution: A Very Short Introduction’ by Richard Curt Kraus (OUP); ‘Wild Swans’ by Jung Chang (HarperPress, 2012) and ‘Friends and Enemies: Past, Present and Future of the Communist Party in China’ by Kerry Brown (Anthem Press, 2009)

Removing your enemies 1: The end of Georgi Markov and others.

In 1978, a news item captured the public imagination for its cruel simplicity. Ask anyone born in Great Britain much before 1970 and they’ll probably be able to tell you who Georgi Markov (1929-1978) was or, at least, how he died. His death, or, rather, his assassination, was like something straight out of James Bond film or a John le Carré book, and it both fascinated and frightened the country, a sign of Cold War tensions brought into the heart of London. Although Markov’s death was a particularly remarkable story, there have, of course, been many other such assassinations and attempts to take out significant figures in the long and bloody history of the Twentieth Century.

It is worth noting that not every high-profile murder is an assassination. To be an assassination, the death has to be a politically, ideologically, religiously or, in some cases, economically, motivated killing of a significant person. The main targets of assassination attempts are usually monarchs and royalty, senior politicians, religious leaders, business leaders or high-profile people who represent a set of values at odds with those of another country, group, religion, individual or party. The deaths of, say, Princess Diana or John Lennon, for example, were not assassinations.

The assassinations and attempted assassinations covered here are not in any way an exhaustive list but they are hopefully interesting and they might introduce some new names or remind you of things you had forgotten. There are only five in this section although others will be covered in later posts.

By the way, there will be no exploration of any conspiracy theories, predictions by Nostradamus, nor anything to do with celebrities in this section; you can find that stuff out for yourself. And I’m not going into the old thing about the word ‘assassin’ coming from the idea that it came from a group of specially trained warriors of the 11th century who got ready for their ‘commando-style’ tasks by smoking hashish. You can check all those things out for yourself in your own time.

Georgi Markov – 1978.

Georgi Markov was born in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria in 1929. He trained as a chemical engineer in the years immediately after World War II and was also a teacher. Bulgaria was part of the Eastern Bloc of states which came under the control of the USSR after 1945. In the 1950s, and following a time of illness, Markov took to writing and produced a number of novels and short stories which were well received. His popularity grew and he was made a member of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, which gave him the official status needed to make a living as a writer. In the 1960s, his work developed to include plays for the theatre and shows for TV, although he found that some of his work was banned, especially the plays. The intensity of the Cold War made creative writing an awkward profession under the regime of Todor Zhivkov, the leader of Bulgaria.

In 1969, Markov left Bulgaria to stay with his brother in Italy, partly because of the pressure placed on him and his work by the Communist system. In 1971, he decided against returning to Bulgaria and instead he moved to London where, amongst other things, he worked for the BBC World Service and Radio Free Europe, an organisation which had broadcast to the Communist states of Eastern Europe since the Cold War started. Naturally, these actions did not go down well with the authorities in Bulgaria, where his passport was revoked, his work was removed from libraries and shops, his membership of the writers’ union was withdrawn and he was sentenced to six years in prison in absentia. Markov became an non-person at home and an enemy of the state.

On 7th September, 1978, Georgi Markov was stabbed in the leg, almost certainly with an umbrella which was tipped with a pellet containing the deadly toxin, ricin. He had walked across Waterloo Bridge in London, and was waiting for his bus to get to work at the BBC. Markov described feeling a slight pain in his thigh, rather like an insect sting, but there were no clear problems until he developed a fever in the evening and was taken to hospital where he died on 11th September. The ‘Umbrella Murder’ as it became known was a remarkable way to kill someone in broad daylight and on a busy street.

The use of an umbrella was suspected but not proven based on Markov’s statement. After he felt the pain in his leg, he turned and saw a man picking up an umbrella that he seemed to have dropped. The man concerned walked calmly away, crossed the street and got into a taxi; he was almost certainly a Bulgarian agent called Franceso Gullino. The sophisticated nature of the pellet which killed him suggested that this had to be the work of a government agency of some kind, and suspicion immediately fell on the Bulgarian secret police. The pellet was designed with a sugar coating which would melt at 37° centigrade, the temperature of the human body, and so release the deadly ricin into the body. There was almost no evidence of the attack left on Markov’s body except for a small puncture hole in the leg.

Although there was an extensive investigation into Markov’s murder, no one was ever convicted of the crime. In the years after the collapse of Communism in Bulgaria and across Eastern Europe, various former Soviet agents spoke of the KGB’s role in planning the attack but they never revealed the killer’s name. Subsequent investigations have led to Gullino being named as the probable killer, acting, of course, on the orders of the Communist regime, and of Zhivkov in particular.

Georgi Markov was 49 years old when he died. He was little known in the West but, as a creative writer, he became a voice who threatened the established lies and cover-ups in his home state. He had the vision, skills and courage to challenge the absolutist regime of Bulgaria, a system that he believed denied essential freedoms to the people. As with most of the people we will look at below, his assassination was a choice made by people in power who sort to suppress any voice of criticism or challenge.

Lenin (Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, 1870-1924) was leader of Russia and the USSR, 1917-1924. He survived two very close calls by assassins in January and then August, 1918. In both attempts, Lenin was shot at by political opponents following the Russian Revolution. The second attempt was the more serious as two of the three bullets hit him, one in the arm and the other in the jaw and neck. Doctors were worried about the damage they might do in removing the bullet in his head and left it in. Although he survived, the attacks certainly weakened Lenin, and worsened the impact of the strokes he later suffered, so hastening his death in 1924 at the age of just 53. The long-term impact on the USSR, on the fate of Stalin and, therefore, on World War II and the Cold War can hardly be underestimated.

Had Lenin been successfully assassinated in 1918, the world would have been very different, probably seeing the rise of Leon Trotsky as leader of the USSR. Then again, if Lenin had lived just a few years longer, maybe even to the age of 65, without suffering the strokes, of course, then so much would have been changed. For one thing, Joseph Stalin would almost certainly have been removed from the Politburo in 1923 or 1924, becoming just a footnote in history. Lenin would have been in absolute power and able to shape Communism and the USSR in a completely different way.

We will, of course, never know what might have been but how history turns on such near-misses as the attempted assassinations of Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov.

Lenin in 1920. If there had been no assassination attempts on Lenin, there would probably have been no Stalin, no Ukrainian famine, no Nazi-Soviet Pact, no Stalingrad, no assassination of Trotsky, no ‘No more heroes’ by ‘The Stranglers’ and, maybe, no one to stop Hitler. (Author: Unknown; Source: here)

Mohandas Gandhi – 1948.

One of the most inspirational figures of the Twentieth Century, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was a Hindu who went a long way towards transcending class and religious divisions in India and around the world. His nicknames were ‘Mahatma’ meaning ‘Great Soul’ and ‘Bopa’, which stands for ‘Father of the Nation’. Gandhi was a remarkable character who had a leading role in the overthrow of British control in India, which led to Indian independence in 1947. His tactics of peaceful resistance, and his use of image, debate, humour and simple courage in the face of violence, became hugely influential on Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. In his role as ‘Father of the Nation’, Gandhi takes his place in a line that includes the likes of George Washington for the USA, Simon Bolivar for much of Central and South America, as well as Nelson Mandela in South Africa. At Gandhi’s birth, India was the greatest colony in the British Empire, a huge territory of over 500 kingdoms; at his death, India was independent, a single country on its way to becoming the largest democracy in the world.

Gandhi lived nearly all of his life under the control and influence of the British Empire. Married at the age of just 13, he chose to complete his education at the University of London. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1891 although he only practiced as a lawyer for a year before heading for South Africa. His stay there extended for twenty years and it was there that he saw and experienced racism aimed at the native population and the many Indians who lived and worked in the cape colony, and were known by the insulting term ‘coolies’. Gandhi became a leader of the Indian community in South Africa and developed his theory of peaceful resistance or ‘satyagraha’.

In 1915, Gandhi returned to India and travelled extensively. He became a supporter of many groups who were suffering and oppressed, such as those of workers in the indigo and textile trades. His profile and attitude led to him being called ‘Mahatma’. Controversies and tensions developed over the following years, which will be covered in more detail in another section, the result of which was that Gandhi was put on trial and imprisoned for six years. Released in 1925 on the grounds of ill health, Gandhi was soon immersed in the growing tensions between Hindus and Muslims, as well as the developing movement for Indian independence.

Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent protest was summed up in his public fasts, the first of which he did from his prison cell in 1924, and the challenge to the salt laws in 1930, a protest which was used to highlight the campaign for independence. He also proposed major changes to the Indian class or caste system, a campaign which drew him into tensions over the status of the ‘untouchables’. By the 1930s, Gandhi was the spiritual leader of India, a figure who held the moral high-ground against the controls of the British colonial powers. In 1931, he went to London for inconclusive discussions about independence. This was the last time he left India.

The remaining years of his life were dominated by the campaigns and arguments over independence. These were complicated by the tensions within Indian society, tensions around the caste system, as well as the religious differences between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The outbreak of World War II brought further controversy as Gandhi and other leaders in the Indian National Congress chose neutrality as they could not bring themselves to fully support the British in their struggle, even though it was against fascist forces. Between 1942 and 1945, Gandhi once again found himself behind bars, this time with most of the National Congress leadership.

The end of the war saw a change of Government in Britain, with Clement Attlee’s Labour Party coming to power. They were already committed to granting independence to India, so victory looked assured. However, the issues around what a newly independent India would look like were still to be resolved, with the Muslim call for its own state within the country being a particular focus of tension. As a part of this, many Hindu and Sikh refugees from what is modern Pakistan, poured into the city of Delhi, and violent conflict developed. It is estimated that a million people died and 11 million were displaced by the troubles. Gandhi began his final fast in a bid to end the tensions and, as various leaders made a promise to work together in peace, the fast seemed to have worked.

Despite the apparent success of this fast, some people were clearly not satisfied and a bomb was detonated in the house where Gandhi was living. He was unharmed but clearly a target for extremists. He refused the offer of bodyguards and continued his routines as normal. A key part of this was his daily ritual of prayer. On 30th January, 1948, Gandhi was running a little late for prayers at 5 p.m., according to his favourite watch. He was approached by Nathuram Godsea, a member of the Brahmin faith, who bowed to Gandhi before shooting him three times with a revolver. Godsea was just one of many extremists who were opposed to Gandhi’s goal of greater tolerance and cooperation with others at a time of inter-racial, religious and cultural tension.

Gandhi’s final words were a blessing to the man who shot him.

Gandhi: a man who understood the power of images as well as words. His influence on Martin Luther King’s peaceful protests was one example of his influence.(Author – Unknown; Source: here)

Huey Long – 1935.

A much ignored US politician these days, Huey Long (1893-1935) was a very high-profile figure in the 1930s. At that time he was the Governor of Louisiana, a hero of the common people and a serious opponent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Long’s nickname was ‘The Kingfish’ and he had a reputation for fixing things in a practical way. He presented ideas which were rather socialist in their goals and strategy as he believed Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ did not go far enough towards helping the poor. His biggest idea was the ‘Share Our Wealth’ scheme, which called for a redistribution of money through a limit on the total wealth, savings and income of each American family, higher taxes on the rich and a limit on high earnings. Long also wanted to attack powerful companies, especially trusts or monopolies, for trying to make high profits. His ideas have strong echoes in the ideas put forward by protesters against the G8 and G20 summits in the wake of the economic and financial crisis of 2007.

Across the USA, especially in political and financial circles, there were many people opposed to Huey Long’s ideas and there were various rumours of assassination plots during the summer of 1935. However, one dispute with a judge turned particularly nasty. On 8th September of that year, Long was in Baton Rouge, the state capital of Louisiana, attempting to force Judge Benjamin Pavy out of office when he was approached by Dr. Carl Weiss, the judge’s son-in-law. Weiss shot Long in the stomach from close range. In the chaos and confusion, shots from Long’s own bodyguards also hit the Senator after they ricocheted into him. Long died in hospital two days later after doctors were unable to stop the internal bleeding. His final words were:’ God don’t let me die. I have so much to do.’

Huey Long was just 42 years old when he died and, with a groundswell of support, he might well have challenged Roosevelt for the Presidency in 1936. And who can say what effect that might have had on the USA and World War II?

The assassination of Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS, better known as Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979) was one of the most shocking actions of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. He was a cousin of the Queen Elizabeth and uncle to Prince Philip, a grandson of Queen Victoria; he was obviously a leading figure in the Royal Family. Lord Mountbatten had a special role in the bringing up of the Prince of Wales, a relationship which was close although not always peaceful and happy. He took on the role of ‘Honorary grandfather’ to the heir to the throne and gave him much advice, not least with regards to who the prince should marry.

Lord Mountbatten was killed by the IRA while on holiday at his home in Sligo on the west coast of Ireland. A bomb was placed on his boat, Shadow V, and this was detonated by radio control as Mountbatten and various members of his family and other friends went on a fishing trip on 27th August, 1979. Two boys died as well, one being Mountbatten’s grandson, Nicholas Knatchbull, aged 14, and a 15-year old boy, Paul Maxwell, who was one of the crew. The Dowager lady Brabourne, his daughter’s mother-in-law, was also killed in the explosion, while Nicholas’ mother, father and twin brother were all seriously injured. It is fair to say that the news came as a huge shock to many people that day.

The focus of the tragedy was, of course, Mountbatten himself. He was such a well-known member of the Royal Family and someone who had been a war hero and a public figure for much of his life. He had fought in World War II, playing a significant role in the raids on St. Nazaire and Dieppe, the latter of which was a disaster which had a positive influence on the planning for D-Day. Churchill appointed him Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia Command in which role he accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces at Singapore. And Mountbatten also had the distinction of being the last Viceroy of India, playing a central role in independence in 1947, before taking over as the first Governor General. In these various roles, Mountbatten had been at war and in conflict situations; the IRA position was that, regardless of his age, he was a legitimate target as a member of the ruling elite of a foreign country which imposed its own controls on Ireland. Needless to say, most people in Britain did not see it that way, especially with the deaths and injuries to so many others.

Later on the same day of the bombing of Lord Mountbatten’s boat, two booby trap bombs exploded near the Northern Irish border, killing 18 British troops. This attack at Warrenpoint was one of the worst in the thirty years of ‘The Troubles’. As with Mountbatten’s assassination, Warrenpoint was aimed at drawing attention to the situation in Northern Ireland and aimed to intimidate the British Government led by Margaret Thatcher. The goal of the IRA was to force concessions from the government, to force the army to leave and to bring about a united Ireland, but instead it just served to harden resolve against the IRA and the Republican cause.

In January 2013, it was reported that four former officers in the Chilean Army were facing arrest for their part in one of the most controversial events of the country’s recent history. The charges centred on the death of a singer, Victor Jara (1932-1973) who was a Chilean folk singer. Jara was just one of many thousands who died in the military coup of that year which saw a right-wing military junta come to power with the help of the CIA amongst others, ousting Salvador Allende, the Socialist President from power. Victor Jara became, in some ways, the voice and the face of that struggle and his memory remains a strong influence to this day throughout Central and South America.

Victor Jara was a member of the Chilean Communist Party and also belonged to a popular movement in Latin America called ‘New Songs’. It was a powerful organisation in the early 1970s, promoting songs which spoke of justice and liberty, criticising the rising tide of Fascism in the region and supporting the policies of Salvador Allende, the left-wing politician who became leader of Chile when he was appointed President after a close election in 1970. Allende himself died in the military uprising which saw Augusto Pinochet, a general in the Chilean Army and later on a close friend of Mrs. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, come to power. The military dictatorship remained in place between 1973 and 1990, allowing no free elections but enjoying significant support from the likes of the USA and the UK; many saw this support for a dictatorship against democracy as an especially hypocritical act.

Anyway, going back to Victor Jara’s story. Jara was a star in Chile, giving voice to the hopes and fears of many ordinary people in the face of increasing threats to liberty. For him this meant a commitment to broadly left-wing, Socialist ideals, a vision which he saw Salvador Allende’s party trying to put into action. But he was aware of the threat to Allende from a powerful coalition: the army, big business and many right-wing politicians. In doing this, the opposition forces had significant help from the US government who authorised the CIA to work against Allende. Allende was a democratically elected leader but this was not acceptable to Washington as he supported left-wing policies and Nixon followed the traditional Washington approach, fearing any signs of Communist influence in Central and South America.

Backed by the army and the police, Allende’s opponents rebelled. A coup took place and many thousands of people, including Victor Jara, were taken prisoner, being held in the national stadium in Santiago, the capital. The army and the police combined to intimidate and torture many of their prisoners, one of their main targets being Jara. He had his fingers and hands broken so that he could not play guitar, although some reports say his hands were actually cut off. Later he was executed by machine gun and buried in a mass grave. Until 2013, no one was ever charged with his murder.

Despite having blood on its hands, the military remained in power in Chile. It maintained a close watch on any signs of rebellion and ensured that the country followed policies which were very sympathetic to right wing, ‘Western’ ideals. The US Government ensured that aid and military assistance was given to the Chilean Government; c lose ties were maintained with the UK Government, a relationship which was rewarded at the time of the Falkland’s war when the Chilean Government was one of the few countries in South America to offer Britain support in the conflict.

Attempts were made to bring Pinochet to trial for his role in the coup of 1973 and in the military dictatorship that followed but they never came to anything. It is interesting to note that the attempts to arrest him came in London where he was receiving medical treatment while staying as a friend of Margaret Thatcher. It is doubtful that they ever discussed Victor Jara or, indeed, played any of his music.

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